


'til it's gone

by traceylane



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, long drives and beach towns and an established relationship, road trip au, thomas chuck and teresa are siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traceylane/pseuds/traceylane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas decides to let Minho and Newt tag along to his father's funeral for moral support, and naturally they plan to turn the trip into the trio's very own Summer Adventure--which will be fun, funeral or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'til it's gone

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thank you to betas [punkassaris](http://punkassaris.tumblr.com) and [sgtbuck-barnes](http://sgtbuck-barnes.tumblr.com) and to you, for reading. [KISSES]

**Friday.**

Minho is still packing their things half an hour past the time they had planned to leave, so Thomas and Newt lean against the side of his SUV, yawning and watching the sunrise while Minho plays Tetris in the back of the car.

“Oh, hey, Tommy—” Newt pulls his bag open and takes out something flat, “I made this.”

Thomas looks at the CD and grimaces. There’s a design on the front, the three of their names in red and orange letters, slapped next to cheesy summer-themed graphics, like a palm tree and a cartoon sun inexplicably wearing shades.

“You do understand we’re going to a  _funeral_ , right?”

Newt frowns and shoves the disc back into his bag. “Fine, sorry—maybe we can just listen to  _Amazing Grace_ , over and over and over until we get there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Thomas answers absently. Newt shoves him sideways with his shoulder, but Thomas smiles and kisses him on the cheek by way of an apology, which Newt accepts if only because Thomas is still looking a little uneasy.

 

—

It’s been just a day since Thomas received a phone call from his university, surprising as the spring term had ended a few weeks before.

It turns out his mother—his biological mother— hadn’t been able to get a hold of his cell number or the number of the landline at the house. It was kind of a surprise that she was even able to find the school he attended and then call up their registrar office, considering he hadn’t seen her since she had given birth to him.

So it was from a sympathetic but official sounding administrator that Thomas had found out that his father—his biological father— was on his death bed, and probably wouldn’t make it to the end of the week.

When he asked in a flat tone why his mother couldn’t have spoken to him herself, the voice over the phone told him that she had preferred to first speak to him in person, at the funeral, for which they were currently making arrangements, and  _I have the information for the service, would you like it?_

And at that point Thomas had been angry. Not only had this woman—his mother, but not really—let him find out about his dying father from some university office worker, but now she expected him to drop everything to see someone he’s essentially never met get lowered into the ground and covered in dirt.

But he had said  _Yes_ through gritted teeth, and written down the date and location of the funeral—on Sunday, a few states North, and it strikes Thomas how close his parents had been all this time, when they had always felt worlds away.

Teresa had been his first phone call after that—regardless of how old he was or how close he got with anyone else, reaching out to her in times of trouble was instinctual and had been since they were children, clinging to each other during thunderstorms and patting Band-Aids onto each other’s skinned knees.

—

—

**Thursday (the day before).**

_“She just expects you to go?”_  Teresa says, and Thomas appreciates that she reads his thoughts, instead of saying something like “I’m sorry,” which would have been nice, but unnecessary, considering that Thomas is not. He’s just… surprised? Confused?

“Should I?”

A pause.  _“Do you think it would be good for you? To see her, I mean. Them.”_

Them. His… other family. Thomas hesitates calling them even that, since family meant Teresa and Chuck and Newt and Minho, people he’d known and cared about for years and who loved him right back.

But he can’t say he’s never thought about it. About what they were like, about their faces, blank in his memory.

“No, I don’t,” he starts slowly, “but I think I should, anyway.”

There’s another silence, but Thomas imagines Teresa giving him a hard nod of understanding before, _“I’ll come with you.”_

“Thank you, but no.”

_“No?”_

“It would take you a while to come up,” Thomas says. Teresa had only just come home for the summer from her school on the other coast, and was now a day’s drive away at their childhood home with Chuck. “And I—you shouldn’t have to do that.”

And she sighs,  _“Are you going to take the boys with you, then?”_

“Do you think they’d let me go alone?”

_“Nope.”_

Thomas smiles. “I’ll keep you posted.”

—

“This is gonna be  _fantastic_.”

“Is it, though, Minho? Is it?”

Thomas is sitting across from Minho and Newt at their square kitchen table, crossing his arms after explaining what had just happened.

Minho had apparently only heard “a few day’s worth of a drive” and was now looking up routes they could take up the coast. Newt is still quiet, holding a hand over his mouth and chin while he thinks.

“We’ll have to start packing now… Tommy, do you even have a suit or anything? We’ll have to go get one—”

“You guys don’t even have to come!” Thomas blurts out, and he sighs, “I could take the next flight out on my own, I just—”

“Thomas, shut the fuck up,” Minho says, still looking down at his phone, though Thomas still thinks it was worth a try.

And he must’ve looked a little hurt, because Minho looks up and gives him a softer “C’mon, dude,” leaning across the table and slapping him lightly on the shoulder. “We know if you go alone you’re just going to make yourself sad, then you’re gonna come back all mopey—”

“I’m not gonna be  _mopey_.”

“—and it’s gonna take us, like, a week to get you to talk about it because you’re a fucking clam, and by then whoever’s ass we’ll have to kick for making you cry—”

“We’re not kicking anyone’s ass!”

“—is gonna be long gone. So the best we can do is be there as eyewitnesses to whatever trauma you’re inevitably going to experience—”

“Minho,” Newt interjects in a warning tone.

“—and, I mean, ease it a bit. Plus,” Minho clears his throat, “I heard the surf up north is awesome at this time of year.”

“You’re a prick,” Thomas says.

“I’m an opportunist.”

And Thomas takes a kick at him under the table, misses, and nearly gets tugged out of his chair when Minho wraps a leg around his and pulls his chair back.

Minho lets go when Newt reaches over and gives his hair a sharp pull, to which Minho responds by grabbing Newt’s wrist and biting down on his fingers while Newt turns back to Thomas and says, “Regardless of Minho’s ulterior motives—”

“It’s just a  _bonus_.”

“—he’s right. ‘Course we’re coming. What are we supposed to do with you gone?”

Minho scoffs, his fingers still clamped around Newt’s wrist. “Well,” he murmurs against Newt’s fingers, “I can think of several things.”

Thomas lets out a drawn out  _Uggghhh_  and sinks low in his chair, his eyes rolling far back, and Newt’s cheeks tinge pink but he continues, “I just mean we’re all better off together. And, fine,” he gives Minho a look and concedes, “Suspect there’s no point wasting the opportunity for a vacation.”

“A vacation? Sure, Newt, and we can take selfies with the coffin. Save ‘em for the scrapbook.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we turned a dire situation into a bloody adventure, would it?” Newt counters sarcastically, and Thomas shuts up, shares a sheepish look with Minho, who can also remember every instance that Newt is referring to.

“I mean, it’s not like that wasn’t the most fun we’ve ever had an emergency room,” Minho admits quietly. Newt just shakes his head.

And Thomas supposes that’s true; the three of them could probably turn murder into an escapade.

 “Fine. Adventure it is, then.”

—

—

**Friday.**

 The full roundness of the sun has pushed itself just over the horizon when Thomas’ cell phone rings inside his hoodie pocket.

Newt peers down at the lit screen. “Teresa again?”

“Yeah.”

They turn when Minho yells from behind the car, “Tell her to quit worrying!”

Newt smiles, but then reaches down and gives Thomas’ hand a squeeze before sauntering away to help with their things and leaving Thomas to another worried phone call with his adoptive sister.

“Hey, Teresa.”

_“Have you guys left yet?”_  She’s skipped the greeting, a sure sign that she’s on edge.

“Um—almost.”

Teresa tuts.  _“You said you were leaving at five.”_

“I know, but we got a little sidetracked packing,” Thomas says, recalling arguments over whose clothes were whose and whether or not they had forgotten anything and the proper way to fold a suit and the appropriate amount of  hair dryers to bring, which was decided upon as “one”, regardless of Minho’s protests.

She sighs irritably, and then,  _“You sure it’s too late for me to come?”_

“Very sure—really, I’ll be fine.”

_“Thomas—”_  Teresa starts, sounding testy, but then she takes a breath and begins again, more gentle. _“I’m sorry. I’m just really anxious about this whole thing.”_

“Honestly? Me, too. But I’m doing it anyway.”

_“As usual.”_

 Thomas laughs. “Minho says to stop worrying, by the way.”

Teresa huffs at that.  _“Is that so? Let me talk to Minho.”_

And when Thomas goes over to hand him the phone, he backs away slow with wide eyes, slicing his hand across his throat,“Wait, don’t—”

Thomas, of course, shoves the phone into his hand anyway.

_“—First of all, don’t tell me what to do.”_

Thomas and Newt stand back, amused, wishing they could hear Teresa’s lecture instead of just Minho’s flustered, clipped responses— “No. Yeah. Of course not.  Of course not! … I mean, if he’s the one jumping in front of the train, is it really up to me to—okay—no, I’m kidding, I will! Definitely. Uh-huh.”—although Thomas can kind of guess how the conversation is going.

Teresa had known Minho since they were children, and the two of them along with Thomas had watched clouds and built sandcastles and played pretend during that short, magical period when children can simply be Children instead of Boys and Girls, though even then, they had fought. They were oddly similar in some ways—the stubborn, strong-willed ways in particular—which only guaranteed that they would be butting heads for the rest of their lives.

There’s a mutual understanding between them, though, that at least one of them had to be there at all times to make sure Thomas didn’t walk into open traffic for whatever reason, although over the years it’s turned from a solemn pact to something of an inside joke, which is probably why Minho barks out a laugh before saying, “Right, you too,” and handing the phone over to Newt.

“Your turn.”

He rolls his eyes when Newt takes an overdramatic gulp before taking it, and then again when he hears Teresa starting to speak in a considerably sweeter tone than the one she was using with Minho.

None of them were really sure why those two got along as well as they did—perhaps it was because they had met when they were older and calmer and had never gotten the chance to push each other off swings or put gum in each other’s hair—but in any regard Teresa had actually seemed  _relieved_ when Thomas and Minho first met Newt (though perhaps not as much as Thomas and Minho).

“She could be a little less obvious about playing favorites,” Minho mutters as it starts to sound like Teresa and Newt are finishing up, and Thomas laughs.

Newt takes the phone from his ear and returns it to Thomas again and smirks, “I’m officially Head Babysitter, so watch your step.”

Thomas scoffs, and says to Teresa, “Thanks for that.”

_“I’m prepping them. Just want to make sure you come back in one piece.”_

Thomas opens his mouth to respond, but he hears another voice, farther away, crackle through the speaker.

_“Is that Thomas? Let me talk to him!”_

_“Wait—okay, just wait a se—Chuck, you don’t need to grab—”_

_“Thomas!”_ The voice is louder now that his brother’s put his mouth up to the receiver, and Teresa’s exasperated sigh is quieter in the background.

“Chuck! Buddy!”

_“Tell Minho and Newt I say hi!”_

(Thomas turns and shouts back at the other two, “Chuck says hi!”, to which they chime back a cheery “Hi, Chuck!”)

_“Have you left yet?”_

“We’re about to—”

_“Where are you going first? Can you bring me back something?”_

Thomas’ heart twinges a bit. He hadn’t told Chuck why he was taking the trip up, not because he wouldn’t have understood—Chuck has a way of being more adult about some things than actual adults—but because as far as Thomas was concerned, he and Chuck were blood brothers, and he wasn’t going subject him to any mention of “real parents”… at least, not over the phone.

But Thomas hated lying to him, even for a few days, and he hated the way Chuck was trying to hide how much he wanted to come—he must’ve thought it was some kind of vacation, after all.

“We’re heading up to Coos Port—probably be there before dinner, if we leave now. And ‘course I’ll bring you something. Whatever you want.”

_“Like a road sign?”_

Thomas raises an eyebrow, but smiles. “Well, I was thinking, like, a snow-globe, but we’ll see what we can do. …Why do you want a road sign?”

_“I dunno… But I feel just having it would be enough, though, right?”_

 “Oi, Tommy!”

Newt’s voice pulls Thomas away from his profuse interest in Chuck’s expectedly bizarre request, and he puts his hand over the receiver for a second to shout back, “Yeah?”

“We gotta head out, bro,” Minho says, coming around the back to the driver’s side, his keys jingling as the ring spins around his finger.

“‘Kay, gimme a sec.” He turns back to the phone call, “We’re leaving now. I’ll text you later, yeah?”

_“Okay. Have fun—stay safe.”_

 “That’s your sister talking.”

_“I mean it, though!”_

“All right, Chuck,” Thomas says, “Love you. Tell Teresa.”

“Love you, too. Bye,” Chuck says, and Thomas hears Teresa shout a quick  _“Byeloveyoudontbeanidiot—”_ before the phone call clicks to an end.

So “I swear to God, I have, like, seven moms,” is what Thomas says when he finally slides into the back seat—“Why am I always in the back!?” “You snooze you lose, asshole.” “Just for now, Tommy.”—and clicks on his seatbelt.

Then they’re off.

—

 They’re ten miles from their next exit when the speakers start playing a Spice Girls track.

Thomas listens for the first few beats, and his stomach drops. He leans forward and looks at Newt in the passenger’s seat. “… You didn’t.”

Newt looks out the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

_I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha._

“Newt _,_ you _didn’t,”_ Thomas repeats, his tone grave.

“Nice,” Minho says, recognizing the tune. He grins as he takes his hand off the wheel to turn up the volume, and Thomas groans.

“Honestly, Tommy, I don’t even know how this got onto the mix,” Newt says innocently.

“Skip it, then!”  Thomas leans farther forward, reaching for the stereo before Minho slaps his hand away.

_If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give; taking is too easy, but that’s the way it is._

“Backseat doesn’t get a say in the music. Rules are rules.”

“Minho, I have  _nightmares_  about this song!”

“No,” Newt says, laughing lightly, “you have nightmares about Rachel Dela Cruz pulling up your YouTube channel on the projector in the middle of English II—”

“STOP! Stop talking! I don’t want to relive this!”

But the two in front are, as usual, enjoying his pain. Minho in particular is doing an impeccable impression of fifteen-year-old Thomas, while Newt is doing a strangely good job following Mel B’s vocals.

_Slam your body down and wind it all around._

And Thomas looks distraught with his forehead against the window, so Newt reaches back and slaps his leg, “Relax, Tommy, it’s a three minute song.”

“Yeah, it’s short,” Minho says.

“Not short enough,” Thomas mutters.

“Worth repeating, though, I would think,” Newt answers, looking over at Minho, who grins back.

“Maybe once.”

“Or twice.”

Thomas wraps his fingers around the door handle. “I am going to jump out of the car.”

But they only laugh.

_If you wanna be my lover._

—

Besides restricting Thomas from touching the radio, they’ve made it a rule that shotgun has to stay awake, so Thomas sleeps in the back while Minho and Newt fall into quiet conversation, although he wakes up every so often for a few minutes at a time to stare out the window or contribute obscure bits of trivia relating to whatever they’re talking about—which is something they’ve grown used to, despite never figuring out how or why he knows the things he knows—before falling back asleep against the car door.

They pick up burgers at a drive-thru around one; Minho eats more than his fair share of fries because “driving takes a lot of energy” and Thomas and Newt share a strawberry milkshake like they’re twelve years old.

They stop for gas around three; Minho and Thomas buy coffee from the mart and Newt has to look away while they drink it, bemoaning the French press they wouldn’t let him bring along.

They end up on the wrong highway around five; the fact that they’re lost isn’t a sudden realization, but a vague suspicion that Thomas has approximately half an hour (and twenty-five miles) before he finally voices it aloud. Newt is unfazed. Minho, having paid for the gas, is not.

But they find their way to their first stop in one piece, anyway.

—

They decide to walk around after dropping their things off at the motel; it’s a cute little town, and Newt needs a stretch, Thomas is restless and Minho thinks he can stave off his exhaustion from the drive by pretending he has energy to spare. (The other two give him ninety minutes tops.)

The early evening sun is low in the sky and the air is cool and briny from the breeze coming in from the shore. They amble up and down the sidewalks, lined with restaurants built out of planks and cafes painted shades of indigo and boutiques with wind chimes and pinwheels tied to little racks outside their doors and windows.

Thomas gravitates towards one shop in particular after passing by most of the rest; its pastel  green door is sporting a tiny cardstock sign with a ‘Welcome!’ printed in a thin loopy font that overlaps with a watercolor of a seashell. Minho and Newt follow him inside, happy it doesn’t look too kitschy and even happier that it isn’t full of things they would probably break just by standing next to them.

They say hello to the storekeeper, and while Newt flips through notebooks displayed nearer to the entrance Minho stays close behind Thomas and peers down with him at what drew them into the shop in the first place. They’re tiny figurines, carved out of wood and laid out on a long table against the wall beneath the soft glow of a low hanging light.

“These are cool,” Minho says, resting his chin lightly on Thomas’ shoulder.

“Yeah… Chuck likes making stuff like this. Teresa hates seeing him with the knife, but he’s getting pretty good.” He turns over the piece he’s holding in his hand, a smooth brown bear, and runs his thumb up and down the grain.

Minho puts his hand over Thomas’, smoothes his palm against Thomas’ wrist, before taking it himself for a better look.

“Do you think he’d want one?”

“I don’t know—maybe he would, or maybe it would discourage him. He’s not  _this_  good.”

They laugh, and Thomas continues, “Do you know what he  _did_  want, though?”

“What?”

“A road sign.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“ _I know_!” They’re laughing again, but the joke fades and Thomas looks at Minho with a straight face. “I mean… how hard would it be to steal a road sign?”

Minho’s eyes flash, and he answers just as seriously, “I dunno, depends how it was fastened to the surface… We would have to have the tools—”

Thomas nods, “Right, and we could—we could pretend to be maintenance workers—”

Minho snaps his fingers, remembering something. “I still have the hard hats in the trunk from that one time—”

“Or,” they hear someone say, “We could remember that theft is illegal.”

An arm goes around Minho’s neck, then there’s a light pressure on his throat as Newt pulls him into a loose headlock and mutters in his ear, “Not that we’re above criminal acts.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t help,” Thomas insists, smiling.

“I would be the distraction.”

“You’re always a distraction,” Minho says, and he gives Newt a coy look, which Newt returns, if not more indignant.

Thomas clears his throat, as Minho and Newt have pressed their faces very close in that way that boys do when they’re trash talking or about to kiss—both of which are probably the case. Newt looks over at him for a moment, coughs shyly, and removes himself from around Minho’s neck, trailing his fingers down Minho’s shoulder and grabbing onto his wrist.

“Wait—I came over here to show you something. Come with me—”

Thomas starts to follow them as Newt pulls Minho away, but Newt pushes him back near the table with a flat hand, grinning. “You stay here.”

Thomas looks at Minho, who shrugs, and then watches them wander off behind another shelf.

And it’s not like Thomas can’t handle being alone, but it feels familiar—nostalgic, maybe, calling back to that melancholy period of time when he was a plus one, rather than a third, and the oddness of those memories are kind of magnified as they wash over him in this quaint little store.

It was an interesting experience, being best friends with Minho, which had been the case since perhaps before either of them could speak in coherent sentences.  Maybe even frustrating, at times, exhilarating often, absurd always. Thomas hadn’t known from the beginning that they would be so attached to each other, and road trip aside it’s strange to think about how Minho would probably leave his entire life behind and go with him, anywhere, if Thomas ever asked, and how Thomas would do the same.

So finding Newt was like getting his head stuck into a bucket of ice water. Just  _meeting_  him jolted Thomas and Minho’s little world, perhaps even shook them out of it because from Day One with Newt something—everything—was different.

That was the first time that Thomas held back something from Minho. They had both talked about liking Newt from the beginning, but once Thomas realized that Minho was head-over-fucking-heels, he pretended to get over it, if only because he knew  that by pursuing Newt he would lose Minho—and he would die before he would lose Minho.

So his best friends started a relationship with each other before Thomas was able to sort out his feelings for either of them—but he’s thankful they did, because Thomas is most adventurous when he’s desperate and wouldn’t have admitted to wanting to be with them if he hadn’t thought he was being left behind.

_And here we are,_  Thomas thinks,  _travelling the world together—sort of_.

The other two are still off somewhere while he sifts through a bowl of chains. He’s picked out a silver one with a simple round pendant that he thinks Teresa would like when they return, looking victorious.

“Did you guys just conquer France?”

“Better.”

“Better than France?”

Minho ignores him, pulls out a small, red cardboard box from behind his back, and shakes it so whatever’s inside rattles around.

“We got you this.”

Newt cuts in, “My idea—but is it weird that we’re giving it to you while we’re in the store we bought it in? I mean—”

Minho wraps an arm around his shoulder and claps a hand over his mouth, “Shh.”

And Thomas takes it and reads the words in white.

“A… tiger puzzle?”

Minho opens his arms, looking at Thomas like he’s crazy for not being ecstatic about this, although there is a faint smile starting to spread across his face. “A  _three-dimensional_  tiger puzzle! It was made locally, look—” Minho points, “Rosewood. That’s—that’s probably good, right? Quality.”

“Wow,” Newt says, tilting himself out of Minho’s grasp, “You’re awfully knowledgeable, aren’t you?”

“This is coming from someone that wanted to get him a hummingbird—”

“Well, why the bloody hell d’you think I asked for your help picking it out—”

“So you admit it was  _my_  idea—”

“You guys,” Thomas says, and they silence themselves to look at him, anxiously anticipating his reaction.

 “It isn’t weird. It’s awesome. Thank you, really.” He’s holding their present in his hands like some kind of holy relic, and they beam at him.

“‘Course, Tommy. And sorry we left you for a bit, there—where to, next?”

—

They eat calamari next to the dock; Minho takes pictures as usual, this time of their dark silhouettes against the soft meld of pink and orange as the sun sinks low into the sea. He asks them to help him decide between filters and gets a mouth full of fried squid.

—

They return to their room just after dusk.

Thomas texts Teresa and Chuck with updates before washing up for bed, and he and Minho are watching television when Newt finishes his shower and finally steps out of the bathroom, half naked and surrounded in steam. Minho’s propped up against the headboard and Thomas is lying on his back between Minho’s legs, head on Minho’s stomach while his hands card absently through Thomas’ hair, and they both give Newt’s bare torso an approving look before turning their gaze back to the screen.

Newt leans towards the TV and squints to see what’s on as he continues to rough up his hair with a towel.

“Oh, God—not  _that_.”

Newt hates most televised singing competitions, but this is one he hates  _especially_.

Minho tuts. “What? It’s entertaining.”

Newt shakes his head and puts on a t-shirt from their luggage, or rather, a foot away from their luggage. It’s a little disappointing, he notes, for him to have put so much effort into packing everything nicely just to have the room end up looking like an armoire vomited. 

 “I  _would_  give this guy, like, a six-point-five out of ten, tops,” Thomas comments, watching the performance on the screen and ignoring Newt’s disapproval. “But he obviously thinks he’s a twenty out of ten, so I’m gonna give him a three.”

“Good call,” Minho says, and bumps Thomas’ fist when it’s offered up.

Newt scavenges the Luggage Ruins for a pair of bottoms and eventually pulls on Thomas’ sweatpants over his boxers, as Thomas, he can see, is wearing his.  

“C’mere,” Minho calls when he sees that Newt’s dressed.

“I’m not judging those people with you. I get enough secondhand embarrassment from you two alone.”

Thomas makes a mock-offended noise, and Minho repeats, “ _C’mere._  You don’t have to watch.”

“You’re so needy,” Newt sighs, but he comes around the side of the bed into Minho’s outstretched arm and curls into his side.

Minho wraps his arm around Newt’s waist and lays his hand, warm, on Newt’s abdomen; he turns his head and nips at Newt’s neck and jaw, murmurs, “I’ll admit that.”

Thomas looks up, his eyebrows knitted while he contemplates, and meets Newt’s gaze as Minho puts his lips on the corner of Newt’s mouth. “You smell nice,” he says matter-of-factly, and then rolls over to lie on his stomach between Newt’s legs. “Like soap.”

“Maybe because I just took a shower—hey!” Newt’s body jerks when he feels Thomas’s lips against the skin above the waistband of his pants where his shirt is riding up.

Newt manages to get out a stifled “You guys—“ and the heat is creeping up his collarbone where Minho kisses it cool and he can see Minho’s hand sliding from Thomas’ hair down his neck under his shirt and shit, is Thomas trying to leave a mark down there or—

“You said you didn’t want to watch,” Minho says—nearly growls, husky and quiet—against his lips, and Newt can feel Thomas breathe out a low laugh where he’s made his way up to Newt’s chest.

“Well, neither do we.”

—

**Saturday.**

Minho wakes up Thomas early the next morning, already washed up, shorts on and shoes laced, and they kiss Newt goodbye before they take off for a run around the boardwalk.

They watch the sunrise and the boats set off for the day and they talk about everything and nothing, almost as an excuse to fill their lungs with the brisk ocean air.

At some point Minho asks Thomas if he’s ready for tomorrow, and Thomas realizes he had nearly forgotten the real reason they’re taking the trip, but now that the funeral is just a little over a day away the muddled feeling he had been trying to smother rushes to the front of his thoughts.

He says he doesn’t know. Minho hears the unspoken  _I’d rather not think about it,_ and doesn’t push any further.

—

They eat breakfast after they check out at a diner near the edge of town with laminated menus and tiny jukeboxes—they don’t work, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from putting two dollars worth of nickels into the one at their table.

They steal bites of each other’s food and debate extensively over which GPS app is more accurate and argue over which way is north on the map but Newt keeps holding Thomas’ hand under the table; Thomas isn’t sure if it’s because Minho said anything, or because Newt’s been just as worried, or if he really is just that bad at hiding his Inner Turmoil.

He appreciates it anyway.

—

“Tommy—drive the car.”

“He’s not driving my car.”

They’re having an argument in the parking lot over whether or not having Minho drive for another six hours would kill him, and by extension, everyone else.

Newt sighs. “Look—you drove all day yesterday, went to bed late—”

“You weren’t complaining last night,” Minho sing-songs, and Newt punches him just hard enough in the stomach to shut him up.

“—and you woke up early this morning. I’m not dying because you think you can run off coffee and sheer force of will. Hand over the bloody keys.”

And they struggle for a moment, Minho holding the keys high above his head and jumping out of Newt’s grasp.

Thomas cuts in, “Minho, how incompetent do you think I am?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

“He’s driving,” Newt says again, taking the keys while Minho’s distracted and sticking his arm in between them before they can start throwing punches.

Minho backs up and takes a breath. “He just—he doesn’t understand my car.”

“Oh, he doesn’t  _understand_ ,” Newt repeats, nodding exaggeratedly before throwing his arm around Thomas’ neck and brandishing the car key in front of Thomas’ nose. He points at parts of it with instructions, “Here, Tommy, this button locks the car. This one  _unlocks_  the car. This one pops the trunk.”

“Oh, what does this metal part do?” Thomas asks sarcastically, running his finger against the key’s teeth.

“You put that in the ignition and turn it.”

“Do I keep turning it while I drive?”

“I don’t know, let’s ask Minho, he’s the expert—Minho, how long do we keep the metal part—”

Minho shoves their shoulders, “All right, you assholes, I get it.”

They laugh and let him push past them to one of the rear doors; Newt takes shotgun again, and Thomas gets in the driver’s seat.

“Comfy?” Thomas asks sweetly, looking back at Minho as he turns on the engine.

“Screw you.”

Newt grins as he adjusts the rearview mirror. “We won’t be long until we stop. Just get a couple of hours in, at least.”

But Minho’s already snoring.

—

They stop at the beach after lunch; Minho was right about the surf.

“You’re going to be whining about sand in your ass the whole rest of the way,” Newt says as Minho zips his wetsuit on and undoes the straps keeping his board stuck to the roof of the car.

“It’ll be worth it,” he says.

By the time Newt and Thomas get on their sunscreen, Minho’s already in the water.

—

“I think you’re going a little too far with this, Tommy.”

“What?”

Thomas answers distractedly, focusing instead on delicately carving what looks like French doors into the east wing of his sand castle. He’s got a blueprint about a yard away that Newt thinks has a very bizarre amount of detail, considering that Thomas drew it in ten minutes with a stick in the sand.

“I said that this might be a little much.”

“You think so?” Thomas puts his chin in his hand, thinks, “I mean, I personally think the pillars give it character, but I guess you’re right, they sort of clash with the kind of post-modern—”

“No, I mean the tide’s coming in and I think you’ve forgotten that this thing is made of sand.”

Thomas looks over at the ocean, which in the last ten minutes has started rippling dangerously close to his construction zone.

Then he looks back at Newt and tosses him a red plastic trowel.

“Well, then, you’d better start helping me.”

—

When Minho finally comes back, Newt and Thomas are lying down on their purple and blue beach blanket, mostly shaded by the wide umbrella they had pulled out of Minho’s trunk and shoved into the sand.

(It was almost miraculous that they’d been able to finish their sandcastle—the construction of which was a phenomenon in itself, in Newt’s opinion—before it crashed in on itself with the tide. Thomas had nearly lost his phone taking pictures of it to send to Teresa and Chuck.)

“What was that?” Minho asks, tilting his head to the side to get the water out of his ears.

“I said you’re  _dripping_ ,” Newt says disdainfully, moving the book he’s reading through his dark, round frame sunglasses so it doesn’t get wet.

Minho ignores him, and turns to Thomas, who’s lying with his head on Newt’s back and looking out at the sea with a faraway expression.

“Yo. Thomas.” He kicks him in the leg.

Thomas looks up at him, raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “Hm?”

“You okay, dude?”

“Oh—yeah.” He gives Minho what he probably thinks looks like a smile, but he’s never been good at faking those. “Yeah, m’fine.”

Minho and Newt look at each other, and it’s a little funny how Thomas’ tendency to get lost in his own world has forced them to get better at talking to each other without saying anything. Minho arches an eyebrow at Newt, who gives him an expression that Minho understands to mean  _Leave it alone for now._

So Minho says, “Come back out with me, then.” He recalls the last time Thomas tried to surf with him—“Maybe this time you’ll be able to stand up on the board.”

“Fuck off,” Thomas says, but he’s smiling.

And Minho pulls him up by the wrist and they run off, hopping over the waves until they’re waist deep. Newt watches them thrash around and try to pull each other under from his spot on the shore, happy with Minho’s attempts to bring Thomas back to Earth.

 —

But Thomas goes quiet again when they leave. Newt drives.

—

“Are you planning on sleeping out here?”

They’re at a rather nice hotel in the city where the service is being held—it’s got a lobby with a fountain and a high ceiling and there’s marble tile in the bathroom and down pillows on the beds but since it was his mother that had arranged their stay here the only luxury that Thomas can really enjoy is the balcony, where he’s been sitting in the dark for the last two hours, looking down at the fuzzy lights and passing cars below.

Thomas has his legs stuck underneath the balcony barrier; his face is stuck between the bars and he swings his feet back and forth over the ledge.  “I dunno. Maybe.”

Newt sighs and sits down next to him, pressing his cheek against the cold metal and crossing his long legs so his knees bump against the fence.

“Has something changed?”

Thomas looks at him. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t look this concerned when we left, but now you’ve got this look on your face like the world is ending.”

“That’s just my face.”

Newt scoffs. “No—really. You not having fun?”

Thomas sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I am, though, and it sucks because I keep thinking about what’s happening tomorrow. What  _could_  happen tomorrow.”

“Your father can’t really do anything to you from a coffin, Tommy.”

“My mom can, though. She did—she just called me up and I fucking up and left to come see her and everyone else that abandoned me—”

“No reason to think they abandoned you.”

“No reason to think they didn’t.”

“No reason to think it was a bad thing, either way.” someone says, and Minho comes steps out onto the concrete with a towel around his neck and sits down on Thomas’ other side.

He, too, turns his eyes to the street down below and says, “It doesn’t matter why you’re here with us instead of there with them, Thomas. I’m just glad it ended up that way.” He claps Thomas on the back, and then brings his arm around so it’s hanging around Thomas’ neck.

“Oddly sentimental,” Newt notes. “Must’ve been all that salt water you drank today.”

Minho takes a pull at his ear.

Thomas smiles, but it fades quick and he continues, “I’m just worried everything’s going to change.”

“Or it could change nothing at all,” Newt says.

“That’s optimistic,” Thomas says dubiously, but Newt shrugs.

“I’m just saying—the family you were born into doesn’t define you. It hasn’t for the past twenty-some years, and it won’t until you die.”

“Fuckin’ Aristotle over here calling me sentimental,” Minho mutters at the same time Thomas says, “Tell me more, Socrates.”

Newt rolls his eyes, his insight wasted on these two pricks.  “See, this is what I’m talking about, Tommy. You’re an asshole among assholes.”

But his voice is firm as always when he says with finality, “But you found us yourself. And that’s what matters.”

And they say nothing more, happy to leave that as the last word.

—

It’s past midnight but Thomas calls Teresa anyway.

_“Tom? What’s up? It’s—”_ Thomas hears her flick a light on. _“—it’s 2AM, fuck—did something happen? Are you hurt?”_

She sounds a little frantic and Thomas suddenly feels guilty. “No, nothing’s wrong. Sorry I woke you up.”

_“Something’s bothering you.”_   It’s a statement, not a question, and it’s comforting that even half-asleep she can tell that something’s wrong.

“I just wanted to make sure you were still there.”

_“That I’m still here? Why wouldn’t I be here?”_

Thomas ignores the question, just strangely reassured from simply hearing her say that out loud.

“And, um—I love you.”

_“Oh…”_ She can tell that’s not the only thing on his mind, but she lets it go if just for the sake of the hour.  _“I love you, too.”_

 “Night, Teresa.”

_“Night, Tom.”_

—

**Sunday.**

The event itself is… uneventful.

They arrive pulling at their stiffened collars, late enough that they don’t have to speak with anyone but early enough that they can slip into the back row unnoticed.

Thomas sees the backs of the heads of the family members in the row closest to the front. There’s a woman with her hair pulled into a tight, brown bun at the top of her neck, and it bothers him that he can just sense she’s his mother.

—

He goes through the service in a fog. The eulogies seem to be about someone important and kind, but Thomas thinks that that’s always the case when someone’s died.

—

It’s at the reception that his mother finally catches his eye and almost runs to meet him.

Her arms are open slightly when she approaches, and it’s involuntary when he steps back behind Minho and Newt—who move to wall themselves in front of him.

“Mom,” Thomas says, though he can’t help but grimace when he says it—it doesn’t feel right. But he moves forward past Minho and Newt, anyway, to speak directly to his… to his mother.

She’s put her arms down, understanding his caution, but she still takes one of his hands in hers and smiles, “Yes. And you’re Thomas.”

He swallows hard. “Um—nice to meet you.”

The hand she’s holding is starting to feel heavy, so he takes it back and wipes the palm down the side of his jacket, trying to ignore how she’s looking at him—awestruck but  _pained_ , hurt that she wants to hold him but can’t, hurt that he’s grown up and she had nothing to do with it.

And a bitter part of him thinks,  _Good_.

Then she turns to Minho and Newt, as if she’s only seeing them now. “I’m sorry—and you two are…?”

It’s a casual question in a nice enough tone, but Thomas is bothered that she’s addressing them like _they’re_  the outsiders.

“Friends—”

“Bodyguards—”

 “We’re in a relationship,” Thomas says impatiently, ignoring the surprised look they give him. His mother, bemused and eyebrows knitted, mouths the word back at him,  _relationship_.

 “They wanted to come,” he continues. “They didn’t want to abandon me when I needed them.”

It’s got more sting in it than he had expected, he can tell even without seeing her looking at him like that.   _Fuck_ —he wants to calm down, but she won’t stop  _looking_  at him like that.

Newt puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. The anxious pressure he hadn’t known was building up between his eyes releases slightly, but then he feels lightheaded and has to grab Minho’s hand and lean against him to keep upright.

“I—I’m happy that you came. I was worried that—”

“We came late,” Thomas says, though he doesn’t think he owes her an explanation, and it shows in his face.

There’s a long, awkward silence before his mother blurts out, “I understand you’re angry—I was hoping we could make peace,” her eyes dart to Newt and Minho, as if they’ll convince her son to give her a somewhat warmer response, but they give her nothing.

“—But there was a bigger reason why I wanted you here for this.”

She pulls something out of her bag; a small, white envelope. Minho and Newt peer down over Thomas’ shoulder to inspect it when he takes it.

“A letter?”

“His will—or rather a copy of it.”

Thomas turns it over in his hand. “Did he leave me a car? Because I could use one of those.”

She doesn’t laugh. “He left you his conglomerate.”

All three of their heads snap up to look at her.

“His what?”

“Have you ever heard of WICKED Industries?” His mother asks delicately, although she probably knows quite well that they would have to have been dead for the past two decades not to know what she was talking about.

And Thomas looks at his friends and they look back at him with wide eyes, faces full of a mixture of shock and confusion and  _Holy shit your dad owned WICKED Industries_.

 “This is—I don’t understand how this is—I just—why? After all this time—”

“ _That’s_  why, Thomas,” she says, lighting up as if it’s finally time to make him understand. “Because he wanted you to forgive him.”

Thomas takes this in, but it’s not enough. “I don’t understand.”

“Thomas, we were forced to give you up for WICKED’s sake,” she says, and Thomas’ stomach tightens. “At the time—the company was just finding its legs, and we weren’t even married yet, and—you have to understand, we couldn’t keep you with us, but we knew another couple—they had a girl who was your age—”

“Teresa.”

“—Yes, Teresa, that was their daughter. We sent you to live with them. We kept tabs on you for years, and I wanted to go back for you, I did, but you had adjusted so well, I was so proud—”

Thomas nearly shouts at her. “Proud? What right did you have to be proud?”

His mother stops abruptly, as if she’d just been slapped.

“Yes—you’re right. I didn’t have the right, and I still don’t. We left you behind.” She looks at Minho and Newt with sullen eyes, as if their very presence constituted as consequences of her giving up her son.

 “But, Thomas, if you look at this, if you just accept this—”

The expression on her face is fiery when she grabs onto his wrists, makes him look down at the envelope in his hand.

“Everything is going to change.”

And Thomas looks at her.

And rips the envelope in half.

(In quarters.

In eighths.)

—

**Monday.**

They’re still not over it when they head back south on the freeway, eating snacks they bought at the last gas station and replaying Newt’s mix CD on full blast.

“The look on her face was bloody perfect, honestly,” Newt says, taking a sip of soda and passing it back to Thomas.

“‘Everything is going to change’? It’s like she was trying to convert me.”

Thomas had decided—perhaps before he had walked straight out of the reception, or perhaps after—that his actual mother was probably sitting at home playing Gin with his brother and his actual father was probably teaching Teresa how to fix the pipes and there had probably never been any reason at all to take this trip to begin with, although he’s thankful for the tan and the puzzle and the thin silver necklace he had bought for his sister.

(And, no, they hadn’t taken pictures with the coffin, but there’s still plenty to go in the scrapbook.)

“Jesus, though, can you imagine if you ran WICKED fucking Industries?” Minho wonders, flipping on his turn signal. “I mean, you’d be rich as hell, but shit, at what cost, y’know?”

“The world would fall apart,” Newt comments.

“I would probably end up accidentally releasing some sort of disease they’ve got locked up and killing half the planet,” Thomas says.

The other two roar with laughter.

Thomas hadn’t realized how much stress had been building up since he had gotten the first phone call, but now that it’s all over he just feels light, like everything is just nearly perfect—

Or, if he sees what he thinks he sees on the side of the road, absolutely perfect.

“Minho, pull over!”

“What?”

“Pull over, right side!” He unbuckles his seat belt, rolls down the window and sticks his head out like a dog, so he can make sure he saw what he thought he saw.

Minho slows near the side of the road, says “Holy shit,” when he realizes what Thomas is talking about.

“You’re fucking with me,” Newt says, as Thomas runs out of the car, picks it up, and holds it over his head like a goddamn Academy Award.

It’s a bright orange sign, large and heavily dented with the symbol for merging lanes blocked out in chipped black paint on its front.

“Do we even know what Chuck’s planning to do with that?” Newt asks as Thomas makes his way back to the car, carrying it under his arm.

“Nope,” Thomas says, grinning, “But just having it is enough, I guess.”

“Glad we didn’t have to steal it,” Minho admits.

Thomas slides the sign into the very back, puts his seatbelt back on, and lies back, satisfied.

“Now,” he says, “we can go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> YES HELLO this is probably the longest thing i’ve ever written wow. i wrote it for an event that did not end up happening but hey gotta get back on the horse yknow 
> 
> another thank you to punkassaris and sgtbuck-barnes because wowie maybe i should get my work beta’d more often
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING
> 
> ((It turned out?? Way less romantic and way more episodic than I had originally intended, I don’t know, forgive me. Also Thomas is so emotional pls stop thinking about shit that’s bothering you bby
> 
> ALSO—I mean, Coos Port doesn’t exist, but it is some strange amalgamation of two Oregon cities, both of which I have never visited in my entire life, but it’s fine, this is fiction [sweats]))


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